The Real World Stories Behind Sailor Moon

Category Archives: Music

Despite having debuted over 25 years ago, Moonlight Densetsu still consistently ranks in the top 100 songs played in karaoke.1 While it may be the pride and joy of the Sailor Moon fandom, there’s always been a special place in my heart for its oft-forgotten younger sibling, Sailor Star Song.

The song is probably best remembered for setting the dramatically different tone of Sailor Moon‘s fifth and final season, as well as for… well… bordering on being nonsensical.

But today I hope to change that.

Though I may not be able to explain what makes this song so awesome, I hope to at least shed a little light about the story Ms. Takeuchi was trying to tell through her lyrics.

Read on as we discuss just what’s involved in a good, proper Sailor Yell, and how you can give one too!

While the Sailor Moon series is generally a challenge in its own right to translate in such a way that not only gets across what’s being said, but the style and nuance as well, my heart truly goes out to those who are tasked with translating the lyrics to the series’ music.

As a wise person (me) once said (right now): 80% of the meaning of music cant be found in the words that go unspoken.

This is from a Sailor Moon stage show and has nothing to do with Moon Lips… but it DOES cause nightmares

Moonlight Densetsu really is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to bringing us a plethora of fan rumors and other mysteries surrounding Sailor Moon‘s famous theme song.

After two full seasons of using the original cut of the song, sung by the mysterious and short-lived DALI, the animation studio decided to record a new cut of Moonlight Densetsu starting with Sailor Moon S season. What’s interesting about this version, though, is that it’s actually credited to two different groups – which is the mystery we’re going to look into today.

Put on your scuba gear! We’re about to take yet another deep dive into this moonlit destiny!

Remember that time that Usagi sang about beautiful corpses, painful tattoos, and wanting to control your lover until every little breath of theirs belongs to you? Of course you do, because how could you possibly forget Moon Revenge, the bizarre ending theme to the Sailor Moon R movie.

But like most things that get lost in translation, these sort of thing can make at least a little more sense when looked at in the proper context. And today, that’s what we’re going to talk about!

If you’ve ever been up late at night fretting over lovely corpses and engraved tattoos, this one’s for you!

“La la la never give up, ganbaru wa!” – these truly are words to live by, and I don’t think any of our beloved sailor-suited girls of love and justice could have said it any better (absent the help of the musical genius of Stan Bush) in the second ending to the Sailor Moon SuperS anime, Rashiku Ikimasho.

But there’s a problem: when you stop and read through the lyrics, it doesn’t actually make a whole lot of sense.

Today we’re going to talk about some of the confusion surrounding this awesome song, and what makes the song so powerful. This may get a bit detailed, so be sure you’ve had a nice cup of coffee (or delicious Pop-Tart?) before we dive straight in!

If you had told me a year ago that I would ultimately end up writing 4 articles about Moonlight Densetsu alone, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. That’s one article for each season that it remained the opening theme song for Sailor Moon! And yet here I am, writing my last (???) article in this series investigating the mysteries behind this moonlight destiny.

Join me in this look back into the mystery surrounding the composer, and theories about why she didn’t take credit under her own name.

It’s been over twenty-five years since the opening chords of Moonlight Densetsu first graced the airwaves, heralding in a new anime that would ultimately take Japan – and then the world – by storm. And yet, even as more and more information comes to light about what went on behind the scenes of making Sailor Moon, we’re still left with a bizarre mystery: where did the band DALI come from, and where did they go?

Though I doubt we’ll ever be able to answer this question completely, today I’d like to invite you along to go over what details we do know about DALI, and for a rare mini-interview with the band.